


all sorts of not sleeping

by kay_okay



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: 2009, 2011, 2013, 2015 - Freeform, 2016, Angst, BONCAS, Cuddling, Established Relationship, Falling In Love, Fighting, First Meeting, First Time, Fluff, Fluffy Smut, Getting Back Together, Goodbyes, Hurt/Comfort, Japan, Japhan, Kissing, Living Together, Long Distance Relationship, M/M, Making Out, Manchester, Smut, Snuggling, Talking About The Future, Traveling, YouTube, breaking up
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-07-02
Updated: 2017-12-12
Packaged: 2018-11-22 14:28:45
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 14,548
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11382090
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kay_okay/pseuds/kay_okay
Summary: Insomnia can be caused by an infinite number of reasons. Here are six of theirs.





	1. mon cœur s'ouvre à ta voix (2009)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> all stories in this series based on this prompt from 8-bit fiction: https://twitter.com/8bitfiction/status/788090514033770496:  
>  _"you are my reason for all sorts of not sleeping at night."_
> 
> i'll update the tags and ratings as chapters are added.
> 
> \--
> 
> title and lyrics for this chapter lifted from ["i belong to you / mon cœur s'ouvre à ta voix" by muse](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZQoqM7l-vlQ).
> 
> this is a work of fiction. this is a fictional story about fictional representations of real people. none of the events are true. no profit was made from this work. all mistakes are my own.
> 
> thank you vic for your help on everything!

  
  
  
_I can't find the words to say when I'm confused_  
_I traveled half the world to say_  
_you are my muse_  
  
\--  


 

**(2009)**

 

Dan thinks he was born with insomnia.

“I don't think that's a thing,” Phil tells him from the other side of England, a stuttering Skype connection between them as he watches Dan stretch out on his bed. “I think it’s something you develop.”

“My mum always told me that I stayed up all night when I was a baby,” Dan continues on, seeming to ignore Phil’s fact check and scratching aimlessly his worn sheets. “She’d put me to bed and I’d just lay there, playing with my toys or just babbling random nonsense.”

“And coincidentally, isn’t that what you still do in bed?” Phil quips, and Dan’s eyes narrow to thin lines.

“Phil!” He screeches, “I’m serious. It would explain a _lot_.”

Phil’s laughing so hard at Dan’s expression he can’t open his eyes for a few moments, but when he finally does, Dan’s sat up on his bed with his arms crossed, glaring into Phil’s eyes from beyond the screen.

“Okay, I’m sorry. This could absolutely be a thing.” Phil literally mimes wiping the smile from his face and turns expertly serious. 

“It just seems weird to have started that early, don’t you think?” Dan asks. “Where’d it come from?”

Phil leans back against his pillows and pulls his laptop on his thighs, screen tipped down to face him. “Maybe you’re just a night owl. You prefer darkness to light, you’d rather be cool than hot.” Phil gets a predatory glint in his eye. “You like being up all night on Skype with your favorite YouTuber.”

Dan cocks his head, a confused look on his face. “I've never talked to Anthony Padilla on Skype before,” he says, finger on his chin like he's actually deep in thought. 

“HEY,” Phil shouts and Dan dissolves into laughter. 

Eventually, they find their way back to the conversation. “Maybe it’s not that you’re an insomniac, just that you have an affinity towards night. It’s not that you can’t sleep, it’s that you don’t want to. You want to experience life and you think sleep isn’t that important. There’s too much going on that you don’t want to miss out on.”

Dan’s quiet for a few moments, and finally he sighs. “Wow, Phil. You take one psychology class and suddenly you’re Freud.” 

Phil somehow produces a notepad and a pen from his bedside table, poises them like he's ready to take notes. “Yes,” he says, voice layered thick with a fake accent, “Now tell me about your problems with your mother.” 

Dan bursts out laughing, bright peals across their increasingly shitty internet connection and Phil feels like he’s right there next to him. 

“What about you then, Phil? What makes you stay up late?”

Phil puts on his own thinking face, chin cupped in his palm. “Well, I’d say it’s wanting to be in great conversations in the middle of the night with people I happen to enjoy the company of very much.” 

Dan’s face softens, a small smile spreading across it as he dips his head.

“I’ll let you know if that ever happens, but in the meantime I suppose you’ll do.” 

Dan’s eyes go wide as teacup saucers and he gasps like a strangled animal, both of them erupting into the biggest laughing fit of the night. “That’s it,” Dan shouts, “I’m logging off to go start DMing Anthony Padilla right now -- ” He reaches his hands up and motions to close his laptop. Phil protests, his own hands waving and shouting apologies and praise over their laughs.

Eventually their conversation dies down, gets quiet and thoughtful as the night presses on and they layout parallel on their respective beds, hundreds of miles apart. “I still can’t believe I’m going to meet you tomorrow,” Dan says, abruptly changing subjects. Phil sees him turn on his side to prop his head up in his hand, hair tousled and cheeks rosy. 

Phil smiles, the small one he saves for Dan where his eyes go soft. “Today, actually,” he says, holding up his cell phone. _4:27am._ “We’ll meet each other today.”

\--

Dan, Phil has learned through many hours logged on Skype, needs to be moving approximately 88% of the time. This doesn’t have to be running around, this can be just simply tapping his foot, drumming his fingers on the side of his laptop, absently turning his phone around in his hand. In person, this translates out as Dan wanting to do everything they come across in their walk around town after they leave the train station.

“Is it too early for ice cream? I know it’s kind of chilly outside but I really feel like it. Oh, and we should check out that bookstore. And that gaming shop you said always has really good sales. Wait, no, it’s more like Starbucks weather. Let’s get Starbucks,” and in a flurry he’s gripped Phil’s elbow and started to drag him through double glass doors.

Phil can only laugh and follow along, because he can’t think of a good reason not to.

After a whirlwind day of window-shopping and snacking their way through Manchester, they end sitting side by side, enveloped in a plush, overstuffed couch looking down at the city. The Skybar’s lounge is quiet, early enough to not yet be bustling with businessmen impressing clients or couples pressed close together having their own private conversations. 

“This is really beautiful, Phil,” Dan says, eyes trained out to the lights and voice soft. “I’m happy we’re here.” 

His voice is a little slurred, the product of probably one too many cocktails, but not so much so that Phil doesn’t trust what he’s saying. Phil looks over, then quickly down towards his own hands, folded neatly in his lap. Dan’s arms lay at his side, palms turned in but open. Inviting. 

He’s not usually one to get nervous. Somehow absent of deep-seeded self-esteem issues most teenagers seemed to find themselves saddled with, Phil was comfortable in his own skin from an early age. He believed in honesty, humility, and being kind above everything else. And when he had feelings for someone, he told them, without pretense or expectations. 

But here, with Dan’s arm asking silently, his big brown eyes looking forward and reflecting the light of Phil’s hometown all around them, Phil finds himself scared for the first time in what feels like a long time. This boy who was so different than anyone he’d ever met in uni, who he could waste hours with on the phone or on Skype talking about everything and nothing. Who Phil felt closer to in the few short months they’d known each other than people he’d known for years. His chest tightens with unfamiliar anxiety, and he turns to match Dan’s gaze, looking forward out the window, gnawing at his bottom lip.

It feels like hours, but it’s only seconds. The air suddenly changes around him and Dan’s hand reaches over, knitting his fingers together gently with Phil’s. 

Phil turns his head before he can stop himself, looks down at their hands like they’re alien and he doesn’t recognise them. He’s sure now would be a great time to say something, anything, but his mouth seems to have glued itself shut. He can’t even make a noise when Dan edges over slightly, pulls their joined hands to try and tug Phil nearer. 

“Just say you’re happy we’re here too, you buffoon,” Dan chuckles good-naturedly at Phil’s baffled expression as he turns in. Before Phil knows what’s happening, they’re kissing. 

Dan’s lips are soft, tentative in their pressing. Phil can’t find breath in his chest, but he gets his free hand to finally move, slide across Dan’s neck to rest against his cheek carefully. He feels Dan’s tiny gasp before he hears it.

“I’m happy we’re here,” Phil says between their lips when they break apart, moments later. His voice is pitched low, gravelly and deep as he strains to stay quiet. Dan can only grin, quickly closing the short distance again. 

Phil feels the heat rise in his cheeks, blood rushing through his body and echoing in his ears like a freight train. There’s so much more at the edge of his tongue, how happy he is to be in his arms, how good it is to feel the warm, insistent press of _real real real_ against his skin for the first time, how breathtakingly beautiful Dan looks with the soft glow of city lights spilling across tanned skin. 

For now, he settles for silence, smiles another kiss into Dan’s cheek when it dimples. They let their bodies and minds do the talking, tucked in a corner away from everything and everyone else in the universe but each other. 

\--

They say their goodbyes early in the morning of Dan’s departure a few days later, pressed together back to chest and from shoulder to ankle in Phil’s bed. Dan’s train leaves at ten after one in the afternoon, and they'd backtracked last night trying to maximize their time. _Should be at the station by 12:30, should be on the bus by 11, leave Phil’s by 10:30, shower by 9:30, breakfast by 9…_ until they deduced that staying up all night would be the most efficient use of their last hours together. 

“Good morning,” Phil says to Dan’s form coming in through the doorway. 

Dan’s hitching up his pants, smiling as he climbs back into Phil’s bed, back into his already-familiar embrace. 

“Can we say that if we never really went to sleep?” Dan wonders out loud, crossing his hands atop Phil’s chest and laying his chin on them. 

“Well, we did say good night. It was just…” Phil glances at his bedside alarm clock, green analog numbers glowing _5:35am._ “...Four hours ago.” He trails soft fingertips across Dan’s forehead and pushes away stray strands of fringe. He can do that now, he thinks with a touch of exhilaration. 

Dan smiles into his fingers and rolls off, sidling up alongside him and wrapping one leg possessively perpendicular across Phil’s thighs. Phil hooks his fingers into the space behind Dan’s knee and tugs him closer. “You trying to take me hostage, Howell?” 

“If that keeps us here longer, then yes,” Dan answers cheekily. He slides a hand up Phil’s abdomen under the duvet, grazes a thumb across a nipple as his palm glides across Phil’s chest. Phil gets a shiver down his spine at the sudden touch and feels Dan grin a full set of teeth into Phil’s side. 

His mouth works upwards, small, sucking kisses planted in uneven lines across Phil’s chest. When Dan climbs over Phil’s lap, Phil’s hands are there waiting for him, running up Dan’s thighs in reverence, fingertips sliding under the straining hem of his shorts. Dan cranes up and Phil gets his hands underneath the fabric, pulling Dan towards him so their hips meet, and Dan lets out a soft moan into Phil’s open mouth. 

“Phil,” Dan chokes out, pointedly spreads his thighs wider and keens a high-pitched sound into the dark of Phil’s room. “Phil, I want.” 

Phil doesn’t even think Dan knows he’s talking out loud -- to be honest Phil’s a little far from his own body right now, everything inside him a thunderstorm of want and desire rolling through his belly and quickly heading south. 

“Phil,” Dan repeats, a little more desperate. He sits up and arches his back in a neat line, graceful and cat-like and long, long, long. “Phil, I'm so --”

He can't finish. “I know,” Phil says, leaning up to press his mouth against the pulse point in Dan’s neck, a dewy triangle of skin that he runs his tongue across and makes Dan cry out. “I know. Me too.” 

_It’s been wrong, but now it’s right. It never fit before, and now it does. It’s like finding something you’ve been looking for, without ever knowing you’d been missing it. It’s what it’s supposed to be._

Phil stretches forward, wraps his arms around Dan, turns to press him down into the mattress, tries to tell him all this as best as he can without any words.

\--

They fell back asleep after that, effectively ruining their entire timeline they’d so brilliantly thought up at dawn. So when it came time to make it to the station to catch Dan’s train, they’d had to run through the entire station only to get to Dan’s platform with only minutes to spare. 

“Jesus on a fucking bicycle,” Dan spits out, dropping his bag from his shoulder to the ground and kicking it for good measure. Phil would scold him but at the moment he couldn’t breathe and only could rub the stitch in his side from running at full speed through a crowded terminal. “Let’s just stop here for a second.”

Phil nods, knowing that they at least have a few minutes before his train was scheduled to leave. It’s an awkward silence between them, the crowd around them so blatant and such a stark contrast to the relative privacy they’ve had all weekend.

“So…” Dan starts. He doesn’t seem to know what to do with his arms. He puts his hands in his pockets, takes them out. Plays with the side hem of his jeans. Runs them through his hair. “I had fun this weekend. Thanks for letting me come visit.”

Phil smiles, but it doesn’t reach his eyes. “You’re welcome. I had fun too. I’m glad you made it.” 

It’s all so heartbreakingly formal. Anyone who could hear and see them would think they barely knew each other, when it was the complete opposite. Phil could tell you everything about Dan, everything he liked and disliked, his favorite music and movies and TV shows. How he could tell the difference just in sound between his real laugh and his polite one, the way his cheek dimpled in pleased embarrassment whenever Phil complimented him. How his miles of caramel skin felt under the palms of his hands.

Phil feels his face flush in a split second, this realisation coming over him. That he felt he knew everything about Dan, and that wasn’t enough. 

“I don’t want you to leave,” Phil says out loud. He didn’t plan on it but he’d felt the words bubble up through his chest and the truth is he didn’t really try to stop them. He’s honest, he reminds himself silently, he’s genuine. He tells people what he’s feeling. Even if this is making him re-think everything he thought he knew. 

He knows Dan’s surprised at the admission, because he sees Dan’s lips part, can see his chest rising and falling faster with rapid breath. Phil wishes he could reach across this ocean of distance between them and get him in his arms, take him back to his bed and show him all the ways he wants him, tell him all the ways he loves him. 

That’s what this is, he realises belatedly. He’s scared to even think the word let alone say it out loud. But it’s never been like this before.

“I don’t want to go,” Dan finally responds.

They take too long looking at each other from across the distance. Phil’s heart races under his skin, blood pumping profusely against his palms, the pit of his stomach, beneath his rib cage.

“God,” Phil laughs gustily after a minute, running a shaky hand across his fringe. “My heart is still going crazy from running up here. Feel my heartbeat,” he says, reaching between them to grip Dan’s wrist and press his palm flush against his chest. “It’s beating like mad.” 

Dan’s eyes are wide, caught off-guard. But he adapts quickly, letting Phil pull him in close until there’s no more distance between them. He settles in, smiles when he feels the rhythm under his fingertips, the small one he saves for Phil where his eyes go soft. 

“I feel it.” 

\--


	2. separator (2011)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Phil,” Dan’s inquisitive voice breaks their few minutes of companionable silence. “Do you ever think about where this all might take us?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> all stories in this series based on this prompt from 8-bit fiction: https://twitter.com/8bitfiction/status/788090514033770496:  
> "you are my reason for all sorts of not sleeping at night."
> 
> i'll update the tags and ratings as chapters are added.
> 
> \--
> 
> title and lyrics for this chapter lifted from ["separator" by radiohead](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vkaSUMcQRJo). *disclaimer I don't actually know their real channel stats from 2011
> 
> this is a work of fiction. this is a fictional story about fictional representations of real people. none of the events are true. no profit was made from this work. all mistakes are my own.
> 
> thank you vic for your help on everything!

 

 

_like I'm falling out of bed from a long and weary dream_  
_finally I'm free of all the weight I've been carrying_

\--

 

**(2011)**

 

“These are our last two, we better enjoy them.”

“Fuck, the last two?” Dan takes a closer look at the grape ice pop in his hand. It’s his fourth of the night. “I should’ve fought harder for the orange one.”

Phil ignores Dan’s longing look. “Yes, that would’ve been a good move.” He takes a long, slow lick up and locks eyes with Dan.

“You’re an ass.”

Phil bites the head off and grins, wiping watered-down orange dye from the corner of his mouth. “And you agreed to live with me. At least you’re saving money on utility bills.”

“God, that’s the only good thing coming out of this relationship,” Dan sighs gustily, folding his legs under him and wistfully gazing out through the paned glass on their balcony. Phil shoves his elbow into Dan’s side, who grins. 

The sky is a warm black, dotted with bright white stars struggling to peer from behind the glare of Manchester’s lights below them. The thick of summer seemed to arrive today, a heatwave over northern England that broke a decade’s worth of records. They’d spent all day inside blasting the aircon, opting to spend a few brave minutes outside past two-AM when they’d grown tired of breathing artificial air. 

Phil bows his back, moves until it’s flat on the ground and props his long legs up on the balcony’s top bar. It's harder to lick the ice at this angle, but the soft wind drifting up from below them cools his bare legs where his shorts have ridden up. It's a small comfort of refreshing relief. 

“Phil,” Dan’s inquisitive voice breaks their few minutes of companionable silence. 

“Yeah.”

“Do you ever --” From on his back, Phil can only hear Dan rhythmically tapping the wooden stick against his thigh, popsicle long-finished. There’s another handful of taps before Phil turns his head, angles his face up to look at him.

“Do you ever think about where this all might take us?”

Dan’s pulled his knees up, gathered together in a pair under his chin, long arms wrapped around them. There’s a maximum-security prison a few miles away, a red blinking light at the top of an obelisk in the middle of the prison yard glinting in Dan’s eyes as he gazes at it.

“What, YouTube?”

“Yeah.”

Phil considers his words for a minute. “Sometimes, I guess. Mostly I try not to worry about it, just think up ideas, make videos for fun.” 

Dan sits back, draws his knees closer in. He bends his bare feet so his toes rap against the glass barrier, eyes still fixed in the distance. 

“Have you been thinking about the future? Of your channel, I mean,” Phil asks. Careful. There’s certain discussion topics with Dan that Phil’s still learning the navigation controls for. Dan doesn't answer for a long time. 

“You know, when I was making videos at uni, I was averaging about five hundred new subscribers a month. And that was when I was making those low quality, thrown-together skits under that terrible yellow light of my room.”

Dan takes a deep breath. “The past six months I’ve been getting no less than a thousand every couple weeks.”

Phil grins, knocks Dan’s shoulder with his knee. “Dan, that’s so great. Congratulations.”

Dan throws a smile over his shoulder, but Phil sees it fade before he turns back around to look forward out over the horizon. He goes back to tapping the glass with his toes.

Phil’s own smile fades too, studying the nervous tic in the pads of Dan’s fingers as they drum out a calculated rhythm on his kneecaps. His face is tight, strained. He looks much younger than he really is, drawn in against himself and overflowing with what Phil knows is worry. His channel, his expectations, his own ability to meet them, his future. Things that Dan talks about when he’s not so restrained, when they're together in bed, drunk with exhaustion or elation or sometimes a mixture of both.

When Phil can’t think of safe words to say, he tries to show instead of tell. So he leans up a little, reaches over to grip gently at Dan’s folded forearms. Dan turns his head in surprise, like he was so wrapped in his own thoughts he’d almost forgot Phil was there.

Phil unfurls Dan’s arms cautiously, tugs them as he returns to lay down on his back, Dan folding naturally across his chest. He’d once told Phil he felt safe like this, tucked together like fingers in a snug mitten, a sleepy confession pressed into Phil’s ribs one night that he wasn’t sure Dan remembered the next morning. He opted to not remind him after, keeping it as a secret for himself.

Dan’s thin and lanky, made up mostly of soft elbows and knobby knees and a choppy haircut, but he’s rarely felt breakable in Phil’s arms. A few times only, in the early days when he was in Manchester so often, and the night he decided to put a hold on uni. This is starting to feel like that again, and Phil racks his brain for ways to diffuse. 

“What if I make a crap video, and I lose subscribers? What if I creatively dry up, run out of ideas?” Dan’s voice is just above a whisper, but it quakes. 

“You could never.”

“Or I lose my drive for this and just stop making videos? What if I’m not as good as people seem to think I am? God, then I'd have to get a job. What if I have to go back to uni?”

“Dan, you are good enough. And that’s not going to happen, I know it.”

“You’re not actually psychic, Phil,” Dan’s biting voice has risen a fraction, more panic than anger, Phil can recognize. “How do you really know?”

He’s lifted himself up by now, looking Phil in the eyes with his palms pressed firmly into Phil’s chest. Phil clears his throat, takes a deep breath. If anyone, he knows how to dismantle Dan. 

Phil pulls one of Dan’s hands free, holds it in both his own. “One,” he says, wrapping his fingers around Dan’s thumb, “I know you’re one of the most creative and passionate people on YouTube.”

“Phil --” Dan starts, rolling his eyes in the dismissive way he does when Phil compliments him.

Phil cuts him off. “Two,” he folds down Dan’s thumb and holds on to the index, all the fingers of his right hand wrapping around Dan’s single digit. “I know you’re a workaholic. You’ve woken up in the middle of the night after having a dream about an idea for a video and you’ll have to write it in that bloody _cow journal_ you have --” Dan chuckles, eyes closing, “ -- so I know you’ll never run out of ideas.”

Dan opens his eyes. They’re bright and wavering, but he doesn’t say anything. His mouth is a small smile, finally cracked to accept Phil’s words, even begrudgingly. 

“Three and four are for your friends and family,” Phil presses the tip of his index against Dan’s outstretched middle and ring fingers, ticking them off one by one, “who I know will love you and support you no matter what happens. And you know my parents have always offered up my old room for us if this whole ‘internet video thing’ doesn’t work out and we can’t pay our rent,” Phil uses one-handed air quotes and Dan chuckles again. His eyes are soft, liquid as they gaze.

“And five, though not a professional opinion, is one from a YouTube dinosaur,” Phil says with faux bravado as he hooks his pinky with Dan’s, “Is that I’m with you, no matter what. You don’t have to have these feelings on your own. No matter what happens, I’m here.”

“ _God_ , that was so cheesy,” Dan groans, their linked hands digging into Phil’s chest when he sits up and leans down. His cheeks are dusted rose, hot when he presses his forehead against Phil’s, eyes slitted from the stretch of his grin.

“You like cheesy,” Phil murmurs before he can’t talk anymore.

Dan closes the short distance between their lips, tastes orange and grape and strawberry and lime, the smell of summer pressing in all around them. Manchester below their feet goes quietly on, unnoticing.


	3. until the ribbon breaks (2013)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He was lying to himself if he ever thought this could work, this sticky, tumultuous way in which they co-existed now.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> all stories in this series based on this prompt from 8-bit fiction: https://twitter.com/8bitfiction/status/788090514033770496:  
> "you are my reason for all sorts of not sleeping at night."
> 
> i'll update the tags and ratings as chapters are added.
> 
> \--
> 
> title and lyrics for this chapter lifted from ["job well done" by run the jewels](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8uC35poq1Zs). (ok technically until the ribbon breaks is a band featured on this song but it was too perfect of a fit not to use their name so let's just go with it and also nsfw warning the lyrics are not clean). the song dan plays on the piano is "true love waits" by radiohead.
> 
> this is a work of fiction. this is a fictional story about fictional representations of real people. none of the events are true. no profit was made from this work. all mistakes are my own.
> 
> thank you vic for your help on everything!

 

 

_so i think we've burned our bridges, but it's difficult to tell_  
_i've been walking through the ashes, saying "didn't we do well?"_  
_so i think we'll have to pay for this, but i'm not afraid of hell_  
_i've been walking through the ashes, saying "didn't we do well?"_  


\--

 

**(2013)**

 

Phil hasn't been sleeping well for a while now. He’s not sure how long exactly, deciding he should stop counting after 100 days. He'd guess about half that time he'd offhandedly watched the sun rise, blinking in surprise as the first pink rays come through his window after another night without rest. Unconsciously wading through his own thoughts as he tossed and turned, like he'd not realised morning would come again.  
  
Still, he thought he and Dan had made some progress recently. It had been so bad at first, the tension in their London flat after the break-up so thick it felt like a sauna, hot and blinding and choking Phil every time they were in the same room. There were long stretches of days that multiplied into weeks that Phil never even wanted to come home at night. But they’d moved past it: unbearable unspoken friction to practically strangers to civil flatmates back to almost friends, Phil feeling like the air wasn't made of glass anymore and that he could start to be more like himself again.  
  
It works now. In their own way. They didn’t need to talk anything over, they just… let things start to naturally rebuild. They weren’t talkers like that. Not anymore at least, not when the subject still seemed too raw to touch, even gingerly, with an intent to repair. At the moment, Phil would take this companionable avoidance of the topic if it meant he could be in the same flat as Dan without wanting to jump out the window anymore.  
  
Their mutual friends don’t understand any of it: the end of their relationship, why it even happened, the weird foggy time after, how it all seems to be superficially working again.  
  
To be honest Phil doesn’t understand it much himself. He tries to not think about it anymore, how they’ve both grown into different people, in seemingly opposite directions. Avoids speculating in his head about the future, how they already have so much of their lives tangled together and how they’ll start to unravel the connections when this all gets to be too much.  
  
Thinking about it keeps Phil up at night.  
  
Phil pulls his popcorn out of the microwave and shakes it into a bowl. He tries to stay positive, tries to focus on the present and the future, working towards being able to look back on the past few years with fondness and not regret or confusion. _A measurable goal,_ those sites he reads in the middle of the night call it. Something he can set up for himself and meet as a milestone marker of progress. _Be able to sit in the same room as them._ Check. _Cordial, surface-level topics discussed without incident._ Check.  
  
_He’s not a bad person,_ Martyn had reminded him over the phone those first few weeks, when Phil would wake up in an empty bed in the middle of the night feeling like his bones were trembling so hard he couldn’t breathe. _He’s young, he’s scared. He’s working through all this not only for the first time but in public, too._  
  
Phil knows he’s right. But it’s hard to grasp things like logic and clarity when you’re averaging four hours a night of fitful sleep and your chest cavity constantly feels like it’s filled with ice water.  
  
_You had us when you went through all these realisations, Phil. Me and mum and Dad and Cornelia, always there to remind you we loved you and cared about you. It’s not like that for him. It's not the same._  
  
Phil knows his brother doesn’t say this for Phil to feel sorry for Dan. He says it for perspective. That’s easy to find when you’re a third party and not directly involved.  
  
He sits down at the edge of his bed, popcorn bowl on his side table, and unlocks his phone. He ignores the feeling of shame he gets when he types _how to stay friends with your ex_ into Google.  
  
Most of the sites are crap.  
  
Okay, technically, they’re not crap, they’re just everything Phil doesn’t want to hear. He scrolls down the search results, clicks on one with the audacity to be titled _According to Psychologists, Staying Friends With Your Ex-Partner is the Worst Idea Ever_ and clicks out before even finishing the first paragraph. He locks his phone back up in disgust and tosses it on the empty pillow next to him.  
  
Hours later, he’s watched the extended cuts of _Kill Bill Vol. 1 & 2_ (including the special features) on his little bedroom TV, the sun long gone down behind the trees in the courtyard visible through Phil’s window, and his fingers itch to be occupied. He reaches under his bed and unearths his laptop, flipping it open and purposefully ignoring Google. He clicks on to YouTube out of habit.  
  
He’s signed into his old account, one hooked up to a personal email address only his family and close friends use. His dashboard is full of the first subscriptions he found before this became his livelihood, before AmazingPhil and before everything exploded into this technicolour amalgamation of his life. _Before Dan,_ he steadfastly does not think.  
  
He watches some of Tom’s older videos and chuckles at them, clicks around PJ’s channel aimlessly watching a bunch of Slurps and skits until he lands on the sleepover video with Chris, laughing until his ribs ache partly at the utter ridiculousness of it but mostly at the faces Chris and PJ make at each other.  
  
Phil clicks into his likes and scrolls aimlessly. He hasn’t been in here in a few months but there’s no expiration date on videos of penguins rolling around on wide ice sheets or capybaras with other animals perched on them, so he looks for something he hopes might bring up his mood a little bit.  
  
There’s a private video uploaded to Dan’s side channel called _lollipops and crisps_ and Phil feels the familiar cold in his chest again. He clicks it without even realising.  
  
The top half of Dan’s head comes into view on his screen, and Phil gasps low in his throat. It’s uncontrollable, just bubbles up out of him because he hasn’t seen that pair of eyes that close up in what feels like a long time. Dan on the screen moves his fringe out of his gaze and sets the camera further back, widens the shot so the frame expands, a side view of Dan sitting at his old electric keyboard coming into view. His Manchester bedroom is behind him, and Phil is hit with a wave of nostalgia for the ease of that time, for that tiny flat high up in a building overlooking the city.  
  
Dan cracks his knuckles and clears his throat, righting his fringe and adjusting the camera two more times until he finally stretches his fingers out over the keys. He hesitates for a moment, as he always does, before starting to play.  
  
The song starts simple, slow and melodic with little movement from the middle of the keyboard. Phil starts by watching Dan’s hands move across the board but eventually finds his eyes have travelled up to watch Dan’s face as he plays. Concentrating seriously, eyes darting back and forth between his hands, a single hair toss to try and clear his vision. He’s struck suddenly by how young Dan looks, even though it was only a couple of years ago.  
  
About halfway through the song, a head pops around the doorway in the corner and Phil startles, then scolds himself silently.  
  
_“Boo!” On-screen Phil said, and Dan jumped.  
  
“Phil! For God’s sake,” Dan stopped playing and clutched a hand to his chest.  
  
“What are you doing?” Phil edged into the room fully and walked over to Dan at the keyboard.  
  
“I was just trying to practice this song. I felt like I was getting it a couple of weeks ago but we got busy and I haven’t practiced it in a while.” He gestured to the camera sitting on the desk. “I’m recording it so I can hear how I’m doing.” Phil ducked down and grinned and waved at the camera out of habit.  
  
“Don’t worry, I won’t post it,” Dan promised.  
  
“So it’s not going to be ‘AmazingPhil reacts to danisnotonfire playing the piano!!!’ ?” Phil grinned.  
  
“That would just be you covering your ears at how shit my playing is,” Dan smirked. Phil rolled his eyes and sat down cross-legged on Dan’s bed across the room.  
  
“Well, don’t let me stop you. It was sounding good, carry on.” Phil put his arms up in the air in an attempt at a dramatic pose. “I’ll break into interpretive dance if I start to feel inspiration hit me.”  
  
Dan grinned, moving over a little on his worn piano bench and patting the pad next to him. “Sit, you weirdo. I’ll finish.”  
  
Phil climbed off the bed and slid into the empty seat, scarcely enough room for both of their tall bodies to fit side by side. Dan cracked his knuckles on each hand again, and grinned up at Phil. “Ready?”  
  
“I’m just the audience, you’re the one that needs to be ready,” Phil cheeked, folding his hands patiently in his lap. Dan stuck his tongue out at him.  
  
He cleared his throat, and the playful manner they’d just been speaking in melted away. Dan faced the keyboard seriously and swallowed, laying his hands over the thin, white keys.  
  
Phil watched his hands for a long time. The song was simple in its arrangement, but the notes were clear and full, the tones communicating something quiet and deep. His hands didn’t move much -- the chords seemed to be close together on the keyboard, tempo slow and methodical. He saw Dan’s head bobbing softly to the rhythm, fringe hanging slightly over his eye with the downward angle he was facing.  
  
Phil turned to look at the side of Dan’s face as he played. They were connected on many points, the side of their inside legs pressed together fully, Dan’s elbow brushing against Phil’s every time he reached for a far chord. But Dan didn’t notice, kept playing on until he abruptly stopped, “That’s all I know, I keep messing up on the -- Oh.”  
  
He smiled when he saw how Phil was looking at him. “How’d I do?” Dan asked.  
  
The question seemed to knock Phil out of his own thoughts, and he hastily looked away and down at the keyboard, rubbing the back of his neck. “It sounded really good!” He exclaimed, too loudly, then cleared his throat. “Um, good. It didn’t sound like you messed up at all.”  
  
Dan smirked a little at Phil’s flustered response, and turned back to the keyboard. “Thanks. I still have the last part to learn, but I think it’s coming along pretty good.”  
  
“Me too,” Phil agreed quickly, nodding.  
  
There was a short beat of silence between them, just sitting close on the piano bench. Dan picked at a thread in his jeans and was just about to get up when Phil spoke again.  
  
“This reminds me of that first time I stayed at your house in Wokingham, do you remember?”  
  
Dan turned to look at him. “Yeah?”  
  
Phil nodded, and some of his palpable anxiousness seemed to melt away. “Yeah, I remember we had been out all day and for once we went to bed super early. We had only been asleep a few hours and I woke up and you weren’t there.”  
  
Dan was flooded with memories all at once, smiling as he felt his face flush. It had been a sweet moment, one he thought about long after Phil left his house that weekend.  
  
“I remember.”  
  
Phil nodded. “I woke up, and I saw you sitting at this keyboard,” Phil reached out and touched the frame of it in front of him. “You had those giant stereo headphones on and you had your eyes closed and you were moving your head back and forth to whatever you were playing. You were only in your pants --” Dan laughed out loud, throwing his head back, “ -- and you were so lost in your own world.”  
  
Dan kept laughing, eyes going to thin slits and smile big and bright as Phil joined him.  
  
“I came and sat down next to you, and after you’d gotten over me scaring the hell out of you, you unplugged your headphones and kept playing.” Phil finally turned to look at Dan, eyes muted and soft, but sparkling brilliantly. “That was the first time you ever played for me.”  
  
Dan felt his breath catch in his throat. He was still smiling but his cheeks were redder now, deep crimson and darkest around a small patch on his jaw. “Probably sounded crap,” he commented, “I don’t think I’ve gotten any better, to be honest.”  
  
Phil reached across them, turning his body to slide his hand up Dan’s arm and resting his palm against Dan’s cheek. “I think you sounded beautiful.”  
  
Dan only hesitated for a moment, but then met Phil halfway when he pulled him in for a kiss, his arms winding around Phil’s neck as he brought him closer. Their laughs were clear and bright in Dan’s darkened bedroom, whispering quietly to each other words no one else could hear._  
  
“Why are you watching that?”  
  
Phil’s heart jumps so fiercely against his ribcage he actually clutches at his chest, has to use his other hand to stop his laptop from falling to the hardwood floor below him. Dan’s voice was soft and neutral, his arms wound around his stomach like one might look if they’re about to throw up. Phil feels like he might throw up, looking up at Dan’s blank face towering over him, so he wouldn’t be surprised if Dan felt the same way. He doesn’t answer him but doesn’t look away either.  
  
Twin peals of laughter, both loud but one pitched lower than the other, emit from the tinny speakers of Phil’s laptop and then cut abruptly, after Dan on the screen shuts off the camera. Phil looks back to see a brief shot of his own palm sliding around his jaw to pull Dan in close again before the screen goes black.  
  
Dan watches the video end, eyes glazed and mouth slightly parted. Phil watches Dan.  
  
He was lying to himself if he ever thought this could work, this sticky, tumultuous way in which they co-existed now. When Dan can’t even think about their relationship without looking like he’s going to be sick, when he himself can’t imagine a future where he's happy without Dan.  
  
Phil doesn’t see a way out of any of this that doesn’t include him cutting himself entirely out of Dan’s life. Sitting here on this bed, in this flat, warm laptop across his thighs and heart beating forcefully against the palm of his hand, it may be the first time he’s ever actually realised this.  
  
He looks to his doorway again, Dan standing there in the frame, the weird interim between Phil’s room and the neutral ground of the hallway. He looks taller than Phil remembers, and Phil wonders absently when that happened.  
  
“Play it again.”  
  
Dan’s voice comes out of nowhere as he crosses the room, tentatively sits on next to Phil on his bed. Phil’s gaping at him like a fish as Dan folds his legs, then crosses his hands in his lap. It feels like a scene from a backwards dream, Dan back in his room and on his bed again, open and inviting and walls down like nothing’s happened the last six months.  
  
“Dan.” Phil says simply, and it comes out in almost a warning tone. _Don't do this. Don't start this if you don't intend to finish it._  
  
Dan doesn’t meet his eyes then. But Phil sees him bite against his lip, eyes fixed on the laptop screen in front of him.  
  
“Please, just play it again,” he replies softly.  
  
Phil refuses silently. But he hands Dan his laptop and turns away, staying on the bed but planting his feet on the floor. He hears Dan start the video behind his back, and every minute that passes feels like an eternity. He can see the images behind his eyelids as the audio plays out, his bashful smile at Dan asking him to sit next to him, the quiet intensity of Dan’s eyes as he played. The delicate way that he touched Dan’s face before pulling him in as they kissed.  
  
He’s about to get up and leave Dan behind, not even caring it’s his own room he’s retreating from, when he hears the video end.  
  
There’s a long stretch of silence. He hears Dan exhale through his mouth, the sound of the laptop lid closing softly and the gentle thump it makes as it’s set gingerly on the adjacent side table. Phil half expects Dan to say something, or scream, or storm out or throw up or something -- anything, really, to end this awful silence that’s carrying on.  
  
But Phil feels movement, the duvet bunching slightly as Dan shifts. His mattress dips and Dan is suddenly behind him. He’s so close he can hear Dan breathing, and before too long he feels a tentative palm press against his back.  
  
Phil feels his entire body tense up, strained and pulled taut like guitar strings waiting to be plucked. The bed shifts again as Dan settles, palm sliding a bit as he lays his cheek against Phil’s back.  
  
“The past few weeks I’ve tried to think about how I could say this to you.”  
  
Phil can’t breathe properly, can’t focus his eyes on anything. He looks down at his hands between his knees. They won’t stop shaking.  
  
“I miss you, Phil. And I love you. More than anything, or anyone. I’m sorry it took me so long to realise. I’m sorry I hurt you in the process.”  
  
Phil feels Dan’s face turn, pressing it into Phil’s back as they breath together. Dan’s hand moves slightly, curling against Phil’s upper arm and holding lightly.  
  
“I’m sorry it took me so long to understand what it meant to say it.”  
  
Dan’s voice is broken and hollow, tipped low and thick with emotion. He’s never heard it sound like that before, and the realisation that this is all happening slams into Phil all at once. Phil has to push his eyes closed. It’s too much at once, too many feelings, too much truth, too many memories. Everything winds itself around Phil’s throat like a pair of wicked hands, suddenly tightening their fingers as he struggles to get oxygen. Phil’s breath comes up short and he doesn’t notice his eyes have filled up with tears until one pushes its way past his lashes.  
  
A sob threatens at the gate of his voice. He has to breath long, shaky pulls of air through his lungs before his voice is strong enough to speak out loud.  
  
“You’re sorry?” Phil whispers instead, all he can manage. “Where have you been all this time?” He doesn’t even know what he’s saying, if he’s even saying it out loud. He feels Dan press all along his back, his forehead resting between Phil’s shoulder blades.  
  
“You don’t -- God,” he has to tip his head back in embarrassment as another hot tear slides out, wiping it away before it even has a chance to hit his chin. “You don’t treat people that you love like this, Dan, in case you didn’t know.”  
  
“I know,” Dan climbs around him, stays close as he sits next to him at the edge of the bed. He wraps his arms around Phil’s tense form, tries to put everything he feels into his gentle touches. “I know.”  
  
But Phil recoils, starts to pull away, frees his arms from Dan’s grasp as he shakes his head. “Dan, no. You’re not going to make this all go away.” His voice is still shaky and he clears his throat. “For six months you’ve treated me at worst like the most horrible person on the planet, and at best like a stranger in my own house, so you’ll have to excuse me if I’m a little apprehensive at this change of heart.”  
  
“You’re right,” Dan agrees. “I want to get better at communicating. I want to be able to talk more.”  
  
“You say that every time we have a fight and you won’t tell me what’s wrong. I had to sit there so many times and just take it, just assume I messed up in some way to make you so mad until you decided you were over it, usually days later.”  
  
“You’re right,” he says again. “It wasn’t fair of me.”  
  
Phil’s mind is reeling and Dan’s still got his arms wound around him. But Phil can’t touch him, is too afraid that he’ll crumble apart again at the hope that this could be mended somehow. He wants to bring him close, feel his skin against him and hold him in his arms but he’s too terrified of that wonderful feeling of safety all being torn apart from him like it already was once before.  
  
“And I don’t know what you expect me to say, I don’t how how I’m supposed to trust you. Are you really going to start communicating like you say you will? I can’t go through this again Dan, I really, really can’t.”  
  
“You don’t have to say anything. And I want to be a better communicator. I’m not saying it will happen overnight. But I want it to work. I want us to work,” Dan insists, clear and truthful. His arms tighten earnestly.  
  
“I wanted us to work too, Dan.”  
  
“I know you did. I see that now.”  
  
“When did you become so _agreeable,_ ” Phil says bitingly, and Dan flinches at the prickly fire of his words.  
  
He regrets it almost immediately as he says it. Phil is never unkind, and never raises his voice. He doesn’t like the way words can be used to hurt people. Dan knows this because Phil’s told him before, after Dan had said some particularly harsh things himself.  
  
Phil hangs his head. He's still tense and resistant, but Dan doesn’t loosen his hold. He moves his forehead to rest at Phil’s neck, lips pressed lightly at the curve of his collarbone. There's nothing sexual or suggestive about it, his arms wrapped pleadingly around Phil’s chest and the way his spine is curved downward, long legs folded underneath him on the duvet, feet crossed at the arches.  
  
“I want to spend as much time as possible doing all I can to show you I want this.” Dan murmurs into the darkened room. “I did a lot of bad things and caused you a lot of undeserved and unnecessary pain.”  
  
Dan’s voice trembles. “You don't owe me anything. And I'm not worth your time. But I hope you’ll let me try.”  
  
When Phil doesn’t answer at first, Dan’s arms loosen a little in defeat. But after what feels like an eternity, Phil lets his own arms fall, winding tentatively around Dan’s shoulders to gather him against his chest.  
  
“Don’t say you're not worth someone's time,” he whispers.  
  
Dan looks up at him, brown eyes wide and clear. Phil had almost forgotten the intensity of looking into them.  
  
Phil uses a single finger to push the fringe off Dan’s forehead. His chest aches. Deep inside him there's an empty, fragmented feeling expanding, mourning time lost that they'll never get back. The passionate, impulsive side of him wants to hold tight and never let go, bring Dan back into his bed and under the safety of his covers, drown him in kisses and never let him come up for air like they'd done so many times.  
  
But his logical side knows they need to talk about it. Work out parameters and understand where they took a wrong turn so they can navigate it when it comes up again in the future. So they can both understand together how to not let this happen again.  
  
This runs through Phil’s mind in a few seconds, Dan waiting and not daring to speak in the fragile moment.  
  
Phil finally unwinds himself from Dan’s embrace and moves backwards on his bed, Dan’s eyes going wide and confused as he thinks Phil’s leaving him behind. They don't break their heated gaze as Phil reaches to turn off the bedside lamp, as he pulls down the duvet, or as he stretches a hand out for Dan to take.  
  
Dan can't quite believe what's happening but he takes the hand and lets himself be pulled, follows the line to bracket himself above Phil when Phil lays down on his back.  
  
It's silent in the room, dimly lit by outdoor streetlights through the window and air charged thick with anticipation. When Phil moves a hand up Dan’s back, sliding his shirt off, he feels waves of shivers under his fingertips.  
  
Phil slides out of his own shirt, tossing it over the side of the bed and staring up at Dan. He thinks he's stupid to feel more naked and exposed now compared to the first time they did this, when they've seen and done so much more since then.  
  
Dan’s still waiting patiently. He may be above Phil but he's very much the passenger in this journey. His breath is shaky, body burning like fire under Phil’s unreadable gaze.  
  
Phil reaches up and dots his fingertips across Dan’s prominent collarbone. His hands grip at Dan’s shoulders, slide down his arms to grip at his wrists and then up again. He rakes soft hands down Dan’s chest finally, watching his fingers’ trails intently like he's trying to remember his way around a familiar map. Dan sighs. It's so achingly intimate.  
  
“I missed you, too,” Phil replies to a statement that feels like years ago, and Dan can't take it anymore.  
  
“Love you, I love you,” Dan leans down and is murmuring against Phil’s lips, and Phil feels the breath in his airways catch this time, when they’ve said it so many times before. This one feels different.  
  
They wind around each other, no points left disconnected, and Phil turns to press Dan into the mattress. Dan welcomes it, separates his knees to make room when Phil lays against him. They've never kissed like this, not even in the beginning, desperate and thirsty and unashamed.  
  
And then suddenly, there’s nothing more either of them can think of to say.  
  
\--  
  
“I Googled, you know, about our -- About this.” Phil gestures between them with his free hand, the other laced with Dan’s on the blue cotton sheets. “Us.”  
  
Normally when Phil struggles for the right words, Dan’s hasty personality makes him jump in and try to get him to the point quicker. Now though he just waits, squeezes lightly with Phil’s knuckles knitted between his own. They're flat on their backs, side by side with the sheet pulled up to their waists, and when Dan pivots his head to the left, Phil’s already looking at him.  
  
“How to stay friends with an ex, I mean,” Phil admits hurriedly, “Most of the things I read didn't offer me any real advice, said that if we hadn't been together long it might be okay, but then we live together and work together and have friends together, but -- ”  
  
He’s babbling, and he stops abruptly in the middle of his sentence to look back up above him, eyes empty as they regard the white, stippled ceiling of Phil’s bedroom. They’re quiet for several long, full moments.  
  
Dan keeps his expression neutral and studies the curved lines of Phil’s profile. The flat forehead giving way to the delicate, sloped nose. The dip above his mouth and the sweet swell of pink lips. A face Dan knew so well he could draw it with his eyes closed.  
  
“If it --” Phil doesn't turn and look now, just chews on his lip while staring straight up. “If it’s not going to work out, me and you. How it was before -- I don’t think I can keep --” It's a jumble of words Phil can't quite seem to string together in the right order but Dan understands. Phil doesn’t finish his thought, whether he can’t or doesn’t want to, Dan doesn’t know.  
  
Dan turns on his side, taking Phil’s hand in both of his. It takes a minute for Phil to turn and meet him.  
  
“Phil, I'll never be able to be just your friend.” Dan watches Phil’s eyes dart back and forth between his own. Flashes of blue that thin as the pupils dilate. “I'll never be able to love you any less than fully. I can’t love anyone else like this. Or let anyone else love me. I don't want to.”  
  
He doesn't -- Dan doesn't do this, they don't _do this._ They don't make grand gestures, they don't wax poetic about love and feelings and tenderness. That was something Dan used to pride their relationship on, the fact that they rarely needed to talk about their feelings, that they just always defaulted to the same page automatically, instinctively, it was easy, effortless, elementary.  
  
But things had changed. They'd torn the wound open again, the stitches so carefully placed over the last six months with the tentative, shaky hands now unraveled, blood spilling everywhere. Dan wanted to fix it. Dan wanted to go back, really, do it all over again the right way, but there was no going back now. Only forward.  
  
So he tugs in, pulls Phil’s face gently against his own, lays soft, tentative kisses across his cheekbones and along his closed eyelids. Phil’s breathing stutters, hesitant, scared arms sliding around Dan’s middle, quiet except for the rustle of fabric as Phil knocks their bent knees together. Dan tastes salt in his mouth when he finally connects it to Phil’s, hot tears from someone but he’s not sure who.  
  
They lay there, re-learning the taste of each other again, how their bodies fit together like puzzle pieces, the sounds they make when hands or fingers get dragged down just right. Dan would think back to this later, and he wouldn't be able to recall how long it really was. But when he pulled back, pale blue dawn sunlight was painting their bare bodies, Phil’s fair skin practically glowing against his own. It felt like coming up for air after being underwater for too long. God, he'd been so stupid to think he was in this alone. He'd missed this. He’d missed him. It’d been right in front of him and he’d let it go.  
  
“Is this okay? Are you okay?” Dan’s voice is scarcely above a whisper, his eyes searching worriedly for confirmation. This was hot to the touch, fragile, and he didn't want to ever break it again.  
  
Phil’s gaze is glazed, lips bitten and kiss-swollen and the colour of strawberries. After a pause, he nods.  
  
“Feel my heartbeat.”  
  
Dan untangles a hand from Phil’s hair and Phil takes it, placing it against his own chest. He lays his other hand over the back of Dan’s and presses it against his breastbone.  
  
“You feel it?”  
  
He watches Phil watching him back. Dan feels repair beneath his palm, blood vessels and arteries sewing together across a wound miles deep beneath the surface of the skin. Ice water melting and evaporating. He gets lost in bright blue eyes, his heart transported back to a busy train station in Manchester, a moment that feels like a lifetime ago.  
  
Dan leans in, softly presses exhilarated, grateful kisses against Phil’s lips. “I feel it,” he murmurs gently, as Phil pulls him bodily against him. “I feel it.”


	4. let it carry you away (2015)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “You mad I dragged you out here in the dead of night for sub-par ramen?” Dan teases, voice deep and quiet.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> title and lyrics for this chapter lifted from ["let it carry you" by josé gonzález](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xv0e2blQB2o). *disclaimer all the japanese i know i learned in karate class at age 11 please don't judge me too harshly 
> 
> this is a work of fiction. this is a fictional story about fictional representations of real people. none of the events are true. no profit was made from this work. all mistakes are my own.
> 
> thank you vic for your help on everything!

  
  
  
_when you long to loose the anchor_  
_and dance the night away_  
_loosen built up tension_  
_let it carry you away_  
  
\--  


 

**(2015)**

 

“I can’t sleep.”  
  
Phil, unfortunately for him, had just finally drifted off when Dan’s voice at full volume in the silent room shakes him awake. It’s only their third night in Japan and even though they’d had a long day filming with Duncan and Mimei, it’d taken a while for Phil’s eyes to feel heavy enough to close.  
  
Phil shushes him, mumbles, “Sleep,” and knocks a sleep-numb fist lightly against the side of Dan’s head.  
  
“Ow! Phil, you don’t have to punch me in the face!” He jabs his finger into Phil’s ribs, eliciting a loud yelp.  
  
Phil jerks to the side, clutching his flanks. “You don’t have to puncture my lung with your bony finger, either!”  
  
Dan huffs and Phil rubs his ribcage, glaring. “Aren’t you hungry? Dinner was ages ago. I’m hungry,” Dan declares, annoyance forgotten, legs sliding out from under their blanket and feet landing on the floor.  
  
“Hungry?” Phil half-whines. Dan looks back to see him rubbing his fingers against the bridge of his nose. His other hand fumbles for his glasses on the bedside table.  
  
“There’s a place I saw on Yelp, a twenty-four-hour ramen cafe that’s supposed to be good,” Dan says, clicking open his phone. He already has on jeans, socks, and a jumper. Phil’s burrowed himself back under the duvet and resembles a human-sized lump of fabric before Dan grips a corner and pulls it.  
  
“You’ve lost already, Philly, just put some clothes on and accept it.”  
  
Dan goes into the bathroom to wash his face and Phil sighs so loud Dan hears it over the running water.  
  
\--  
  
With their Japanese skills being minimal to non-existent, the taxi of course drops them off at the wrong place and has driven away before they realise it. Thankfully they’re not far off, and while Phil is trying to flag the driver down to come back and pick them up, Dan finds a non-drunk-looking passerby and mumbles a timid, _sumimasen?_ in the man’s general direction.  
  
After some pointing and flailing by Phil accompanied by Dan miming eating noodles out of a hand bowl with finger chopsticks, the man (who’s smiling politely but looking completely mystified at the existence of two British giants in the middle of the night on his tiny street) gestures down the road and says _asoko desu._  
  
Phil stops his gesticulating and Dan looks behind them, clapping Phil on the arm with the back of his hand. “It’s there. Thank god we’re not that far. _Arigato gozaimasu!_ ” Dan shouts, grinning and saluting at the man as he drags Phil by his jumper sleeve.  
  
The sign is a simple black circle with red letters in the middle that they would have for sure missed without the help of the man because there’s no English to be found anywhere. Dan vaguely knows _ichi_ is Japanese for _one_ and the place is called _Ichiran_ and the first letter is just one long line so maybe it means one and he’s hoping that he’s adding everything up correctly here and this is actually the place. Dan and Phil fall in at the end of a short queue leading out of the restaurant, only four people deep at this time of night.  
  
“How do you know this is the place?” Phil tries to whisper discreetly out of the side of his mouth without looking too much like a confused tourist.  
  
“I learned to read Japanese overnight,” Dan whispers back out of the opposite corner. Phil steps on his toe.  
  
\--  
  
They worked up a good appetite standing in line for 45 minutes ( _“Who else eats ramen at three in the morning?”_ Dan had grumbled), but a large bowl for each of them later and Dan’s only complaints are that his eyes were bigger than his stomach.  
  
“I’m never eating again,” he declares loudly, clutching at his stomach through his jumper and waddling slowly down the sidewalk.  
  
“Not until breakfast, anyways,” Phil remarks dryly, looking across the dimly-lit road to an even darker public park.  
  
“Oi.”  
  
Phil ignores him and pulls his sleeve, moving to trot across the street. “C’mon, let’s walk it off.”  
  
Dan groans. “You don’t have to run so fast!”  
  
\--  
  
The park is less foreboding up close, soft orange lights on tall hunter green lampposts lighting the path. There’s not a soul around but it’s tranquil, beautiful in a well-manicured and neat way, like nearly everything else they’ve seen in Tokyo.  
  
“From the outside, I thought this would be a lot scarier,” Dan observes, voice low but eyes still darting around, untrusting. “Phil, there’s a lot of trees.”  
  
“The sun will be up soon,” Phil reminds him. “It won’t look so creepy then.”  
  
“It’s kind of nice all quiet like this,” Dan contends after a while. They’ve reached the middle of the park, city sounds completely gone, and come up on a small, curved wooden bridge stretching over a creek. It’d look like a stereotypical Japanese postcard in a souvenir shop if not for how little light there was.  
  
This far in it’s a bit more chilly, and Dan shivers as he tucks the cuffs of his jumper around his hands. Phil leans into him, and given the lack of people this time of night thinks it’s okay to slide one of Dan’s hands between his own as he rubs them together, warming their fingers. Dan shoots him a glance of soft appreciation, lets their shoulders touch as they trek on across the bridge.  
  
Soon they come to a small hill, flanked at both sides by the split creek. A wide-trunked tree sits at the top, branches weighed down with fat pink cherry blossoms, loose petals strewn across the grass. They wordlessly make their way up the hill in tandem, Phil sitting down first against the trunk and letting go of Dan’s hand as he follows him to the ground. Dan grunts when he connects with the earth, leaning his head back against the tree trunk and accidentally knocking down a small shower of pink petals.  
  
He chuckles, tossing his hair left and right and Phil laughs when he sweeps the stray petals off Dan’s jumper. “I can’t take you anywhere,” Phil comments.  
  
“I know, I’m such an embarrassment,” Dan sighs dejectedly.  
  
They finally get settled and look out over the horizon. It didn’t seem like a large hill but from up here, there’s a gorgeous view of the neighborhood. A mile-long commuter bridge in the distance, tall buildings at the edge of the park, backlit by a midnight sky rapidly turning into morning. Dan had been so preoccupied with not being scared of the dark, or the trees, or anything else that he’d forgotten to stop and look around him.  
  
“What a view,” Phil echoes next to him. “I didn’t expect this.”  
  
“Me neither.”  
  
Dan’s not sure how long they sit there but at some point Phil leans in again, slides his body down a little until his temple meets Dan’s shoulder. Dan hears him groan out a loud yawn, the joint of his jaw popping as he reaches under his glasses to rub at his eyes. He sneaks a look at his cell phone, blinks at the bright screen showing him _4:44am._  
  
“Tired?” He asks, unnecessarily.  
  
Phil nods into Dan’s shoulder, nosing into the cap there like an animal begging to be stroked until Dan gets the hint and lifts his arm. Phil presses bodily against him gratefully, sighing into the warmth. Dan smiles to himself, runs a palm down Phil’s bowed back and up again in wide, rhythmic ovals. Phil teases Dan for being so tactile all the time, but when Phil’s bone-tired like this all he wants is to be enveloped by Dan, slotted safely between two arms that don’t loosen until long after he’s drifted off.  
  
“You mad I dragged you out here in the dead of night for sub-par ramen?” Dan teases, voice deep and quiet.  
  
Dan feels Phil’s head shake against his chest. “No. I’m glad we came.” Phil’s voice is soft, far-away.  
  
“Today was fun with Duncan and Mimei. I’m glad we got to see all those little shops in Harajuku.”  
  
“Those little cakes we got were amazing,” Phil murmurs, gesturing weakly with a hand. “With those things on top.” He gestures more, silently asking Dan to fill in the blanks.  
  
“Candied ginger,” Dan finishes.  
  
Phil snaps his fingers weakly and touches his nose, confirming. Too tired to even talk anymore, he grips a handful of Dan’s jumper, who brings his other arm around diligently to connect with the first. Fully encircled, Phil exhales again.  
  
Dan’s not sure how long goes by, but he’d been watching the horizon lighten minutely, sun still tipped below his eyesight but night fading faster and faster. He couldn’t sneak a look at his phone again given how Phil was now wrapped around him like a hungry boa constrictor, but they’d had plans to meet Duncan and Mimei for a mid-day brunch and they should probably get some kind of sleep today before attempting to interact with other people. He’s just about to shake Phil awake when he hears him speak after a few minutes of companionable silence.  
  
“Dan.”  
  
“Hmm?”  
  
“I’ve had a lot of fun on this trip, but…” Phil’s words are properly slurred now, drunk with exhaustion as he yawns again. His hands feebly lose their grip on the soft cotton against Dan’s chest, and Dan feels Phil’s body start to slack in his arms.  
  
“But this has been my favorite part.”  
  
There’s birds in the trees above their heads, just a few early risers chirping delicately into the morning breaking around them. The sky is painted slate, cloudless and a perfect gradient in the distance blending into the soft, buttery yellow of a new day’s sun.  
  
“Mine too,” Dan whispers against the crown of Phil’s head.  
  
They can stay a little longer.  
  



	5. find me (2016)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I’d thought about it all night, if I won, if I would I do it... I went through so many scenarios in my head, Dan. If I did it, what I would say. What you would think.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> all stories in this series based on this prompt from 8-bit fiction: https://twitter.com/8bitfiction/status/788090514033770496:  
> "you are my reason for all sorts of not sleeping at night."
> 
> i'll update the tags and ratings as chapters are added.
> 
> \--
> 
> title and lyrics for this chapter lifted from ["find me" by sigma f/birdy](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ec92Wa8zJs8). 
> 
> this is a work of fiction. this is a fictional story about fictional representations of real people. none of the events are true. no profit was made from this work. unbetaed, all mistakes are my own.

_i see you, you're in the darkness_  
_blinding light right where your heart is_  
_if you're ready, heart is open_  
_i'll be waiting, come find me_  
  
\--  
  
**(2016).  
**   
Phil looks like he’s struggling. He has all three of the rose gold hashtags in one hand, and a drink in the other. So Dan tries to edge around some people at the party, post-awards, and stop near anything with a ledge he can lean them on.  
  
“This is OK here, don’t you think?” Dan slows to a stop near a tall, floor-to-ceiling window, freshly-shined panes looking out over the busy Oxford Circus below them. There’s a little cocktail table pressed up against the glass, a single tea candle in a small golden jar the only light in the dim corner of the room.  
  
“Yeah, this is great.”  
  
“You can rest your hand. You’re going to have a beefy left arm pretty soon,” Dan teases. Phil rolls his eyes good-naturedly.  
  
It’s a fun little reception, glitz and gold decor that seem to perfectly match their shiny suit jackets, people coming up and congratulating them every so often. They chat briefly, always friendly and good-natured, courteous and considerate.  
  
But after an hour, Dan feels like he’s about to float away with the amount of champagne he’s consumed, the lights in the room starting to blur together like a city landscape through a rain-streaked window. Phil’s there in that suit jacket and the cheap shoes that honestly still look pretty damn good for being so flimsy, cheeks pinked and lower lip getting shinier and shinier the more he drinks. Dan checks out from the conversation, watches Phil talking to Marianne with his wild gesticulations and elated smile and he’s not ashamed to say his chest swells a bit.  
  
He’s proud, really. Proud of him, proud of them, of all this. Of the little world they created, together, that people actually wanted to see it, paid to see it and experience it with them. Dan would get sentimental but Phil’s there in that suit and with that shiny bottom lip and Dan also isn’t ashamed to admit he can’t concentrate on much else right now.  
  
When Marianne excuses herself and they’re alone again at their table, he nudges his elbow into Phil’s ribs.  
  
“Oi. Are you ready to leave yet?”  
  
Phil glances over after he takes another champagne flute from a passing catering attendant. “Where all these free drinks are flowing and people keep showering us in compliments and praise? Surely not.”  
  
Dan huffs impatiently, leans the short distance across the cocktail table, precariously close to the open flame of the tea light. “Leave now and I’ll blow you in the bathroom of the next airplane we’re in, like you’ve been begging me to do for the last year.”  
  
Phil doesn’t even look at him, just tosses back the entire contents of his glass, shoves the awards in Dan’s hands, and drags him out by his sleeve.  
  
\--  
  
Dan would like to think he had some semblance of dignity on the cab ride home, but it was pretty much non-existent. When they get out of the car he slips a couple more tenners into the cabbie’s hand and tries to avoid looking at him directly in the eye.  
  
Phil chides him when they get inside their front door. “What if that driver lives around here or something? He’ll remember me as the guy who accidentally kicked the back of his seat because his _boyfriend_ bit him on the neck like the filthy vampire he is.” Phil rubs the area of incident around the bend of his jaw.  
  
“Oh, shut up, you liked it.” Dan toes off his white dress shoes and kicks them across the entryway, tugging the door shut. Phil starts to protest but Dan comes up behind him and re-attaches his mouth to the same spot, his palms sliding low along Phil’s flanks and Phil really and truly forgets everything he was going to say.  
  
“Besides,” Dan’s mouth is warm and insistent against Phil’s exposed neck, hands kneading into the pointy ball joints at the top of Phil’s hips while he huffs a deep whisper next to Phil’s ear. “I'm impatient. You kept me waiting all night.”  
  
With an alcohol-assisted level of assurance and confidence, Dan manages to reach around Phil’s middle and blindly loosen the hold Phil’s waistband has on him. “Dan --” Phil starts in surprise, but Dan turns him around, hands sliding up Phil’s back, under his suit jacket.  
  
He tugs Phil closer, feels the breath Phil draws quickly in when Dan leans in to kiss him hungrily, all teeth and tongue. He wastes no time, draws his hips tight to Phil’s, arm around his waist as he leads him to their bedroom.  
  
Dan tugs at the jacket from the inside as they stumble, never the graceful pair but successfully clearing the doorway to their room without major injury. Dan moves his mouth down the side of Phil’s neck, sliding the jacket off inch by inch until it’s gathered behind him, arms pinned as Dan nips at soft, warm skin.  
  
“Dan --” Phil whines impatiently. Dan smiles against the underside of Phil’s jaw, tugs at the short strands of black hair in his hand to bare more skin at his neck. “My arms.”  
  
Phil gives a feeble thrash and pitiful whine against his constraints, but Dan just pushes him against the closed door, lays hot kisses into every bit of flesh revealed as he moves on to unbutton Phil’s shirt.  
  
“I hate you, I hate you so much, you’re the _absolute worst --_ ” And Phil’s talking complete shit because he moans at the end of his sentence when Dan gets his teeth around a nipple, keens when Dan slides a hand down the back of his dress pants. They’re already unclasped so the fly’s open, unzipped and loose around Phil’s hips so his whole torso’s bare, clenching in anticipation at the tiny bites Dan leaves as he travels south.  
  
“This is barely fair, and you’re wearing so many clothes, and I can’t move,” Phil pleads, struggles against the sleeves of his tangled jacket again when Dan trails his mouth down Phil’s belly, gets slowly to his knees and grins up at him.  
  
“I promise I’m going to make this worth it, Phil,” Dan shrugs his jacket off, low lamplight catching on the sequins and sending scatters of light around the room. Phil’s breathing stutters and he watches, holds eyes with Dan as he tosses the jacket aside and starts to unbutton his own shirt.  
  
Phil sees lithe fingers loosening the skinny black tie, unhooking tiny white buttons, slowly and carefully, watching until Dan leans in and his hands dip from view. Phil feels a hot mouth press against his hip, dress pants falling obediently into a puddle at his feet and the cool draft of the room winding around his bare legs.  
  
“Dan,” he pleads, doesn’t know what else to say when all he wants is to reach out, get to skin on skin and stop this unbearable, one-sided pleasure. His fingers start to tingle. “ _Dan._ ”  
  
But Dan just smiles serenely, basks in the warm glow of driving his partner completely out of his mind, and lowers the elastic at Phil’s hips. When he finally gets a hand around Phil, tongue lapping at the tip in one quick motion, Phil throws his head back and actually and truly screams.  
  
“You made me hit my head on the door!” Phil cries out, then moans brokenly. Dan slides off, licks a wet stripe up his hand and keeps working a closed fist around Phil’s cock.  
  
“You going to make it?” He asks, guides the tip back into his mouth and grins. Phil sighs in defeat.  
  
“No, you’re going to kill me,” he laments. Dan just laughs against him, shudder running through Phil at the vibrations, getting up on his knees so he can bob up and down, ears perking in pleasure at the change in tone of Phil’s moans.  
  
“So good at this, _please_ ,” Phil begs, the crown of his head pressed against the door. “Want to touch you.”  
  
Dan looks up and sees the tension in the crease of Phil’s eyebrows, the twitch of muscles in his shoulders as they contract. He doesn’t want to tease him anymore.  
  
Dan leans back, sees Phil watching as his cock falls obscenely out from between Dan’s lips, the wave of relief washing over Phil’s features when Dan reaches behind him and pulls the tangled jacket and shirt from around Phil’s hands, finally setting him free.  
  
“Fuck, come here,” is all Dan hears before Phil is sliding hands up Dan’s bare shoulders to grip at his face, pressing clipped kisses at his mouth as Dan bursts into laughter at Phil’s exclamation.  
  
Dan gets helped to his feet only to be pushed down onto the bed, Phil’s hands and mouth all over him like they’re making up for lost time. Phil kisses down Dan’s chest and tugs at his waistband --  
  
“Did you have to wear paint-on trousers?” Phil grunts, finally getting them off and throwing them on the floor. A sarcastic retort stuck in Dan’s throat, he chokes when Phil skates a hand up Dan’s ankle and grips at his calf.  
  
“Watch it, I just might be ticklish and _accidentally_ kick you in the face,” He warns, but Phil laughs it off and tugs Dan closer by his thighs.  
  
When they get down to the blissful state of skin on skin, Dan’s hands map trails across the planes of Phil’s back, scattering fingerprints across the lines of rib bones like piano keys. He grips the skin there and flips them, pushes Phil into the mattress with his hips, earning a mouthful of shaky gasps that Dan swallows down greedily as he kisses him.  
  
Phil edges over to reach in their bedside drawer for the little bottle of lube they keep stashed away. Dan pulls back to climb over Phil’s hips, and takes the bottle from Phil’s hands when he hears him pop the cap.  
  
“Let me,” he says. Phil nods and lets his hands fall to Dan’s thighs, sliding up and down in anticipation. When Dan gets a wet hand around his cock and gently moves his fist, Phil sucks a breath in through his teeth and tightens his grasp.  
  
“Good?” Dan smiles into his question, running the pad of his thumb along the head.  
  
“Yeah, yes,” Phil says hurriedly. Dan tosses aside the bottle with his dry hand, leans down to kiss gently at Phil’s cheeks, peck sweetly at his lips to offset the wet slide of his fist against Phil’s cock. Phil leans up for more, grasps at Dan’s hair with two hands to bring him closer, bites against Dan’s lips until Dan lets him in.  
  
Dan feels safe in the soft cradle of Phil’s arms and legs, shivering every time Phil tugs a little harder at his hair, opens his mouth a little wider, presses his tongue in a little deeper. Dan moans when Phil grabs two handfuls of Dan’s ass, the rhythm of Dan’s hand faltering, and he has to open his eyes again to focus on what he's doing.  
  
“Dan,” Phil sighs out, and Dan knows what that tone means. He feels fingertips press against his entrance and he pushes back.  
  
“Tell me you’re ready,” Dan murmurs leaning into Phil’s chest with his free hand as he lifts up, pressing Phil’s cock behind him and between his legs.  
  
“Been ready all night, please Dan, need you now,” Phil kneads into Dan’s thighs and begs.  
  
Dan tips back slowly. Sinking down, he watches Phil’s face change little by little. Eyes shut tight, brow furrows, tongue darting out to lick kiss-bitten lips the color of strawberries. Phil glides his palms gently across Dan’s hips and murmurs encouraging words, things like _so good_ and _like that_ and they don’t often use pet names except in the bedroom so when Dan’s fully seated and shakily lets out the breath he’d been holding, Phil digs ten half-moon shapes from his fingernails into Dan’s legs and says, _yes, yes_ almost hidden under his breath, _yes, babe._  
  
Dan’s head falls back on the exhale, baring his throat, and he feels Phil’s hands come up around his shoulders, slide down his arms. Phil loves him like this, he’s told him, whispered it in Dan’s ear when they’re close in the dark, like it was their secret to keep. Phil’s fingers find Dan’s, fit between them to help hold him up when Dan starts moving his hips, tortuously slow at first.  
  
Dan arches his back, rolls his torso expertly and when Phil finally makes a loose fist around his cock, it's just the amount of pressure release he needs.“Fuck, fuck -- ” Dan cries out, “Tighter.”  
  
Dan’s already pretty wet so Phil just rolls his fingers, clenching a tight fist and tugging to Dan’s rhythm in his lap. When Phil runs his thumb down along the prominent vein, Dan keens with sensitivity, falls forward to kiss hungrily at Phil’s mouth as he rocks back and forth in his lap.  
  
Dan knows that logically, sex isn't supposed to be objectively beautiful. Two bodies writhing together and making embarrassing noises, relentless and wild, mind completely tunneled into one simple goal and stopping at nothing to achieve it.  
  
But Phil’s spread out under him, practically vibrating with bliss and anticipation, covered in a thin sheen of sweat. Just enough to make him glow like he's on stage, lit up by spotlights from both sides. It's ethereal, exciting, what they do to each other. It's beautiful.  
  
“There!” Dan’s own voice slams him back into reality, sudden bright white behind his closed eyelids. “Fuck, Phil, there, _there --_ ”  
  
Something snaps inside Phil, Dan hears the change in the cadence of his breath and sees his eyes flash sharply. Phil grips hard at Dan’s hipbones, sitting up and drawing Dan closer. Dan doesn't have a minute to think before he's gathered in Phil’s lap, roughly pushed backwards to topple onto the cool sheets, Phil bracketed over him.  
  
“Like this,” Phil demands, biting kisses against Dan’s mouth that pepper eagerly down Dan’s neck. Dan shivers.  
  
“Oh,” Dan remarks, light-headed, delighted, so fucking turned on when Phil does this. His arms crane back to grip the sheets at the foot of the bed. “Like this works too.”  
  
Phil drives into him without abandon now, sliding his palm up Dan’s thigh to grip at the plush skin of his ass. Dan tightens his legs around Phil’s waist, closes the distance that’d spread between them to pull him in even closer.  
  
“So good, so fucking good at this,” Dan lets sweet compliments slide like honey from his mouth into Phil’s ears, soft fingers dragging across the planes of his bare shoulders and through his dampening hair. Dan’s head nears the edge of the bed, fractions of centimeters closer every time Phil pushes into him. He’d worry about sliding off but nothing exists except Phil and all the points where they're connected now, each spot burning like a firebrand leaving claiming marks into pliant skin. He wants Phil to ruin him. He tells him so, words spilling stuttered and honest into their dark bedroom, air thick and charged.  
  
Phil’s distracted, rightfully so, so Dan curls a tight fist around himself and strokes his cock to Phil’s rhythm. “I’m so close,” he gets out, “Fuck, Phil,” and when Phil drops a series of hot, sucking kisses against Dan’s neck, it’s over. Dan feels a cold chill start in his toes and shoot up his body, breath caught in his throat, heart fluttering against his chest. It feels like it lasts hours, too much pent-up energy from the entire night all dissipating in one moment as his orgasm rips through him like a welcome wave crashing against a desperate beach.  
  
When enough blood has drained from his head that he can feel his limbs again, Dan tucks his hips up around Phil’s sides, pulls at Phil’s face until he can kiss him messily. Dan tells him how good he feels, how hard he came, how he could do this forever, lips pressing confessions into the damp skin of Phil’s face and hands working knots out of his tired shoulders.  
  
Phil whines a little, impatient for release. When Dan rolls his hips to meet Phil’s, he tugs their foreheads together and pleads. “ _Let me hear you,_ ” whispered between two mouths, and that’s all he needs.  
  
Phil stills, gasping out a single halted breath until he finally sighs into the release. Slowly he falls apart, joint by joint, and Dan catches him as he collapses against his chest, protected.  
  
\--  
  
After, there's a smudge of glitter sprinkled across Phil’s cheek like a lone constellation of iridescent freckles. Dan suspects it’s remnants from brushing up against Dan’s jacket, so he leans in, kissing a line up Phil’s shoulder to his neck. He lays sweet pecks across his skin as he cages an arm over Phil, blowing a small puff of air across a pinked cheek.  
  
“Glitter,” he explains when Phil looks at him questioningly.  
  
“Your fault,” Phil teases, tugging at Dan’s thigh until it slides over Phil’s hips, until his leg folds on the other side and Dan is rested above him.  
  
Dan hums, eyes dark as he smiles down at him. “I'm the young one and I don't even have the stamina for round two yet, don't tell me you want to go again.”  
  
Phil, eyes not even fully open and too tired for a proper comeback right now, just chuckles deep in his chest. It's a comforting sound that reminds Dan of lots of early mornings spent together, too many to count, tucked close in bed as they speak the first words of the day to each other.  
  
"Just want you closer," Phil confesses.  
  
Dan leans on his elbows, pushes them chest to chest and rests his weight on Phil. It’s quiet, this moment, nestled warm together under their blanket. Dan likes it like this, just the two of them after a long night of being around so many people.  
  
“I meant what I said you know,” Phil remarks, out of the blue.  
  
“Hm?” Dan cards his fingers through thick hair at the crown of Phil’s head, distracted mind still tinged fuzzy this soon after.  
  
“I guess it was kind of -- in the surprise of the moment or something. About things splitting apart without you.”  
  
Phil’s voice is pitched low, deep and raspy just how Dan likes to hear it. Like they’ve been screaming at each other all night over video games, or filming videos over and over, or tucked close like this in their bed, hours and hours ticking by as they’re shut off from the rest of the world.  
  
Dan has so many things he wants to say now, but Phil’s eyes are unfocused off in the distance of their room and he looks like he has more to say.  
  
“I’d thought about it all night, if I won, if I would I do it... I went through so many scenarios in my head, Dan. If I did it, what I would say. What you would think.”  
  
Phil’s eyes come to rest on Dan’s and he inexplicably looks worried. Dan smooths down the hair at Phil’s temples, and after a long pause, Dan finds his voice. “I couldn’t believe you did it. I was so happy, Phil. You made me so happy.”  
  
“I didn’t even know I would do it until I was up there. I was just babbling, I was saying that speech losing my train of thought and I saw you in the crowd and I wanted you next to me,” Phil slides a hand across Dan’s neck, watching his fingertips trip lightly along Dan’s collarbone. “It didn’t feel right without you next to me.”  
  
Phil meets his eyes and Dan looks and looks. He’s looked here so many times before. But something’s different now.  
  
Dan just smiles happily, a small one of recognition that breaks into something so content, joyful. He smiles into his kisses against Phil’s cheeks and lips, presses them onto his forehead and down his neck, joining him when Phil dissolves into laughter at the tickling gesture. Phil surges up to kiss him again, holds on to Dan’s middle as he turns them, laying Dan on the mattress and pulling the blanket over his back as he leans in.  
  
Surrounded by warmth, Dan slides his arms around Phil, promises to never let him go.  
  
\--  
  
Eventually, the awards will end up on Phil’s bookshelf with other treasures, seated between a stuffed blobfish and a 3D jigsaw Pikachu. But the hashtags spend that night on the floor of their bedroom, tossed aside with two pairs of dress pants, two white dress shirts with tiny buttons, and two shiny suit jackets (one significantly more glittery than the other).

**Author's Note:**

> let's be friends on [tumblr](http://kay-okays.tumblr.com) and [twitter](http://twitter.com/achika_) xo


End file.
